¹When you go out to war against your enemies, and you see horses and chariots – a people greater than you – you shall not fear them, for the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, is with you. ²And it will come to pass, when you engage in battle, that the priest will approach and speak to the people, ³and he will say to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, you are engaging in battle against your enemies today. Do not let your heart be faint, do not be afraid, and do not be alarmed, and do not be terrified in the face of them. ⁴For it is the Lord your God who goes with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you.’ ⁵And the officers will speak to the people and say, ‘What man builds a new house and does not dedicate it? Let him go and return to his house, so that he does not die in battle and another man dedicates it. ⁶And what man plants a vineyard and does not gather its vintage? Let him go and return to his house, so that he does not die in battle and another man gathers its vintage. ⁷And what man betroths a wife and does not take her in marriage? Let him go and return to his house, so that he does not die in battle and another man takes her in marriage.’ ⁸And the officers will further speak to the people, and they will say, ‘What man is fearful and faint-hearted? Let him go and return to his house, so that his brothers' hearts should not become faint like his heart.’ ⁹And it will come to pass, when the officers have finished speaking to the people, that they shall appoint the commanders of the armies at the head of the people. ¹⁰When you approach a city to do battle against it, you will proclaim peace to it. ¹¹And it will be the case that if it answers you with peace and opens up to you, that all the people present in it will be yours under tribute, and they will serve you. ¹²But if it does not submit in peace to you, but wages war on you, then you will besiege it. ¹³And the Lord your God will deliver it into your hand, and you will strike down all its male population by the edge of the sword. ¹⁴But you will take for yourselves as booty the women and children and cattle and everything in the city – all its spoil – and you will eat the spoil of your enemies which the Lord your God has given you. ¹⁵You will act like this with all the cities which are very remote from you, which are not of the following peoples ¹⁶(and you will certainly not allow any living thing from the cities to live – the cities of these peoples which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance), ¹⁷for you will completely obliterate them: the Hittite and the Amorite, the Canaanite and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, as the Lord your God has commanded you, ¹⁸so that they do not teach you to do the same as any of their abominations, which they perform for their gods, whereby you would be sinning against the Lord your God. ¹⁹For you will besiege the city for many days doing battle against it, to capture it. You will not destroy its trees by applying an axe to them, for you will eat from them. So you will not cut them down, for is the wild tree a man who can confront you in the siege? ²⁰But as for a tree which you know not to be a fruit tree, you may destroy it and cut it down, and you may build a siege engine against the city which is waging war with you, until its fall.